Motorola Droid Bionic
Phone Scoop Review
Sep 9, 2011 by Eric M. Zeman
Motorola and Verizon Wireless have finally brought the LTE-packing Droid Bionic to market after a prolonged nine-month delay. Was the wait for Motorola's first LTE 4G smartphone worth it? Phone Scoop tells you in this full review. read review ›
User Reviews
Average Ratings
Better, stronger, faster...
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This is my 4th droid; I started with Moto, two htc then back to moto. I have to say this is the best one I've ever had. It's fast (4g) great clear crisp display; good camera. Above all, and most important, it makes calls well. It doesn't have absolutely clear and perfect call quality (what cell does?). I've yet to try Razr Maxx, but I am VERY satisfied. I tried iPhone 4s for a couple of days -- not good at all.
my first smartphone
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This is my first smart phone and I am very impressed. I would highly recommend the phone to anyone. The hands free speaker works great and the bionic
has a lot of nice features.
Has potential, but,,,,
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I wanted this phone to be awesome, but after only 2 weeks I've had to get a replacement and it's still not what I expected from Moto. I've had many of Moto's VZW and Sprint products and have been a long time fan of their hardware/software builds. Here's my breakdown:
PROS:
- LTE (when connected) is awesome
- processor is super fast
- speaker phone is plenty loud
- overall nice look
CONS:
- software is buggy, phone has frozen many times during camera use, calls and unlocking the screen.
- UI is better then previous moto "blur" but has a long way to go, not polished like HTC sense.
-camera (for pics) is useless, takes 3 seconds from the time you press the on screen button til the shutter clicks.
-my second units earpiece is distorted and people say my calls sound muffled.
- phone drops out of data service often, forcing me to do a battery pull and reset. This happens a lot after a call.
Those looking for a dual core processor phone might want to wait for the next line or a software update, otherwise you might have the same problems I had.
Genie in a bottle
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Without to much hyperbole, holding this phone in my hands is like having a Genie in a bottle, or even a portal to the universe. Unimaginable power even a few years ago. Real Ray Bradbury stuff. Want to see the sun coming up over Half dome in Yosemite, it's yours. Call up the Hubble space telescope for a look at the beginning of the universe 12 billion years out. Done in the blink of an eye. Here in San Francisco on the Verizon 4G network, the download speeds are up to 20 Mbps and the upload speeds can reach 16.5 Mbps. Dizzy yet? The screen is bright, sharp, contrasty, and big. The operating system is mature and seems to anticipate my every need. The camera, it works. The video, it works very well. Oh yea, as a phone it sounds great. I got the extended battery at the point of purchase for a decent discount, which I would recommend, and the Verizon hard shell case, which feels good in the hand and will accommodate the extended battery. Am I stoked? Five stars full.
phone of the year!
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I am so glad I waited because this is well worth waiting for.
Pros :
Beautiful screen, insanely fast, easy to use. Loud speaker.excellent call guilty and reception. Great design
Neutral:
Battery.screen lock
Cons: none
The battery life is good holds up under heavy use.(4g eats it up fast) the screen lock is a little annoying but can get over it. Motorola has done very good here and all others should take notice .....
9 months in the waiting.......
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Having this phone finally in my hands, I have to say feels surreal.....
The build quality is superb, the weight and feel are also above par. The display is ample in my opinion, however, coming from a Droid Charge, I have to say there are differences in contrast, image quality, and sharpness, however the display on the Bionic suits my needs.
The call quality is great! Not as loud as I'd like it, but decent enough for mid to loud ranges in noisy environments. The camera, which I honestly have to say takes great pictures, needs updates to the interface to improve usability. Currently, the camera app is laggy, takes too much time to focus, and seems to be lacking more robust features found on previous offerings from Motorola.
The battery life has been great, and I have been constantly gaming / surfing with the ever present calls and texts coming in.
One thing, the alarms / notifications / speakerphone seem to be a bit on the low side of volume tastes. I'd say out of 10, these can be scored at about 6 or 7. Not the best, or the worst, but the clarity for the speakerphone is decent, it's just the volume that's holding it back.
Loaded with Gingerbread, this Droid is truly a dream, snappy with all apps and commands, I feel the delays were acceptable to improve this device.
A kickstand perhaps should have been included with this unit, and aside from the speakerphone volume, I have to say this phone is definitely worthy of a 4.5.....
Worth the 9 months? Perhaps.... Worth the price of 299.99? Give us a break Verizon. The only reason I paid that is because originally this was the phone I set out to get when I returned to Verizon. A great phone, solid in all regards and outstanding in performance in terms of processing speed / network speed, but perhaps a bit overpriced.....
Very Nice
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I am coming from the HTC Thunderbolt, so I can compare the 2 really well. I have had Bionic for 2 full days.
Things that are better about Bionic
-The most thing that is better is the screen in bright sunlight is excellent, probably the best I have ever had. The Thunderbolt was very bad in direct sunlight no matter how bright you put the screen.
-It is faster to use so far, very zippy and fast.The Thunderbolt seemed good when I got it, but it really slowed down, felt slow when I had it last, maybe the build up of the apps and the cache's, it felt like it was getting slow. I guess I will have to see if this one will feel like that after using for a few months, but it is a dual core phone.
-Lighter weight phone.
-Android 2.3.4 is nice
-I think the 4G connection is better, it doesn't cut in and out as much as the Thunderbolt, it seems to always be connected. The Thunderbolt 4G would cut in and out on mine (I live in Brooklyn, NY)
-Call sound quality is clearer then Thunderbolt, Thunderbolt was muffled sounding.
Neutral
-Motorblur is ok! not that bad but definitely not as good as HTC Sense.
The battery it came with sucks and is just as bad as the Thunderbolt's. I don't notice at all that is better, I don't think it is.
Better about Thunderbolt
-HTC Sense UI
-Camera for sure (I am a photographer and am very good at tweeking settings and all that stuff. The Thunderbolt was very nice, its autofocus was fast and responsive and it even had facial recognition on the standard camera app. And the exposure seemed to be better too. The Bionic over exposes and the auto focus is slow and it blurs often, whether from being out of focus or from motion blur (using too slow of a shutter speed).
So overall
Pros of phone
-screen in direct sunlight is excellent
-fast
-light weight phone
-Android 2.3.4
-Stock ringtones
-Call sound
Cons
-battery life of course (definitely get the extended battery, everyone will need it)
-Camera
-screen door affect on the display sometimes
one of the best phones ive ever used.
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This phone is great. I have owned every iPhone that has been released, and this phone is right up there with them and even passes them in many categories. My only issues are the screen, wish the colors were vibrant Like the SuperAMOled screens. Battery life is bad but in my opinion every phone has bad battery life if u use them like I do. The plusses are signal strength, no lag, fast, and app quality seems better than on other phones. If all Android phones that come out are of this standard, Android apps won't have any problems competing with their IOS counterparts.
LOVE my Bionic
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Love my Bionic, ⦠Mostly that is.
Let me get the "negative" out of the way first.
The battery cover is a bit hard to remove and replace and is a bit thin and cheap feeling. A nice solid back side would have been nice. It would also have been nice if Motorola had put a "kick stand" on it like the Thunderbolt. This would make using the front camera more useful. The vibrator (for silent mode) although strong has this funky sick sound to it. Let's you know the phone is ringing but !!!
Other than that WOW!!! This thing rocks. 3G and 1x signal is awesome and 4G everything promised. 4G really let's you see just how fast this dual core processor really is.
The display is very crisp and the color is rich and detailed. Call Quality and clarity is very good. The battery seems to last much longer than I had ever expected. It is a smart phone and so when using the web you can drain the battery some but they did a good job with this one. If I just use this as a "Phone" the battery will last a solid 14 hour day and then some. If I am doing a lot of down loads.... not so well⦠but still quite good for a smart phone.
I got the Lap Dock with it and this helps a lot when using the web. Key board and large display are handy.
Over all this is the best phone Verizon has ever offered. It will be interesting to see how the market goes now that 4G / LTE is growing.
hide detailed ratings
Excellent Phone!
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Pros:
Super Fast, 4G is amazing with a good signal it's faster than my cable based internet.
I love the Motorola UI it makes management and other tasks not available with vanilla android a breeze to use.
Screen looks good even in direct sunlight, unlike the original Droid
Gorilla glass screen is a very nice touch and the whole device just feels nice and sturdy.
Cons:
Camera software is not the best, does anyone know of one that is better on the market? Battery life,
